Monthly Archives: July 2016

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Okay, this is not a how-to guide for decluttering your home or environment, although I could certainly write an article about that. I was born to organize and declutter. However for almost two decades, I lived with a man who was a hoarder. At the time, I had no word for it. It started slowly and grew exponentially as our my spouse and the relationship fell out of center. Every room had a path through it that was about two feet wide. Boxes, clothing, computer pieces, camera parts, papers of all kinds and other assorted flotsam filled rooms to bursting. Sometimes up to the ceiling! There was no rhyme or reason to it, and none of the items had any use or value.I could not staunch the flow, no matter what I tried. I could hardly live like this and combatted it daily. It crept under my skin during the day, and practically exploded out of me at night. It was like a thing that lived with us that was evil. But my spouse would have a week long fit, exploding in rage, if I were so rude as to mention ‘the mess.’ He didn’t see it that way and he felt I was nagging and unfair to him. Apparently I was the bad guy in this scenario.

I begged to clean up on the weekends when we had time. He’d oblige, and then ten minutes into it he’d have this ‘great idea’ to go to the hardware store to get materials for building shelves. Shelves for more junk. Shelves to organize the junk. Or 30 large plastic tubs to store all the junk in. To this day I can’t stand the sight of those big blue plastic tubs. We would spend all day at the hardware store, come home, spend ten more minutes on cleaning and quit. Now not only was there a huge mess, but a mess of building materials on top of everything else clogging up one of the few free areas left to me.

When we moved to a small 350 square foot apartment in Manhattan, I thought for sure we’d downsize. He insisted we take everything. In his absence, I threw out as much as possible. When we arrived, it took two full days to unpack the largest moving van money could rent. It all went up inside my tiny, clean, perfect apartment. There were stacks of boxes now that stood almost 11 feet high! Again there were only small paths between them. Almost no place for a bed. Nothing changed most of the nine years we spent there. Needless to say, we rarely had company.

After Manhattan, we moved to New Mexico. Finally we had a piece of property and some room to stretch out! However the home soon filled up with junk. A second building filled up with junk, soon Continue reading →

When you hold your own mind hostage, It’s like being in prison. It’s a lot of self-imposed suffering. I am guilty of this bad habit. It’s a bit like jumping to conclusions but bigger. It takes a while to dump it and change behavior.

Case in point: A friend of a friend said their friend went to a family gathering thinking the worst; that no one liked them, that they would be shunned, ignored, that they were disliked. Yet the opposite happened and the opposite was true. They were welcomed with open arms. They were able to catch up with a lot of people they had been estranged from and had totally the wrong information for many many years. The person who was responsible for spreading the dark information about them in the past was now out of the picture. How many years did our hero waste in shame and fear, thinking they were unloved by their own family? Way too many! It simply was not true. They were holding themselves hostage and suffering for it.

All the self deprecating thoughts and low self-esteem—it was all in this person’s head. Our hero was making assumptions that the information being sent around was true, and they were too afraid to reach out and find out what the real story was. The cloud has lifted and it took an in-person visit to see the truth. Years and years of bad energy followed this person around like a cloud for no good reason. The truth was easy to uncover. They were holding themselves hostage in their mind.

Following the advice of Byron Katie would help in this instance. I loved her book, Loving What Is. She asks the reader to ask themselves four questions, to free their mind:

Is it true? (Yes or no. If no, move to 3.)

Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (Yes or no.)

How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

Who would you be without the thought?

Another case in point: I was on Facebook looking at my feed. Usually there are videos and those automatically start playing, or at least they used to. The person posting this video had good intentions. They wanted to find the culprit that tortured a dog which was shown on the video. I had to stop the video from playing after only a few seconds or I would throw up. For days I could not get this image out of my head. Once you see something, you can’t ‘unsee’ it. I kept obsessing over it, because I am an animal lover, and my pets are my family. I could not imagine why anyone would do this, and I also could not imagine why someone would post this for any reason. It shook me to my core.

“I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.”
—Byron Katie

What I kept telling myself when I felt that nausea well up inside was, this event happened a long time ago, and any suffering for the animal was long over. It took days for me to become normal again and shove this awful thing out of my head. I sent love to all concerned. That’s the best I could do. Send love, send love, send love. Be in the moment. Follow the advice of Byron Katie. Follow the advice of Eckhart Tolle and be in the moment. Smell the air. Watch the birds fly overhead. Be grateful for the moment.

What I did wrong was hold myself hostage by having terrible thoughts about the act, and utter disgust for the perpetrator. These feelings did not help anyone. None of my feelings were for the greater good, nor were they positive energy in any way, shape, or form. In addition, I was angry that I had spent any time spinning in negativity. I had no excuse to dwell on something done long ago, that I was helpless to change. I spent my good energy chasing bad.

The lessons in both cases was not to dwell on things you have no control over, and that are in the past. If needed seek the truth. Send love. Move on. Live in the moment.

Someone recently asked me why some lessons seem to repeat. The best way for me to explain why lessons keep coming up is to look to my personal experience in the trenches. My years before The Long Exhale were spent in the most demeaning and abusive relationship. It was so bad I thought I’d die, or worse, have to keep living that life. It was a hard knot to untangle. I felt certain lessons come up, so clearly in my face during those 18 years. I could not for the life of me figure out why they kept coming up, until I was out of it. Then it was easy to see why I had been banging my head against the same wall. Perhaps my story might help others.

Why were these lessons repeating? Didn’t I solve everything last time? Didn’t I apologize enough? Didn’t I make enough changes at my core to make this relationship work? How was I still not making him happy? Didn’t I humble myself enough? Didn’t I do enough? I was always the one with the job, bringing money home. He spent it before I could make it until we were bankrupt. I worked my butt off at a job, spent two hours a day commuting, I made a house a home, made dinner, did all the cleaning. He was a hoarder, a word I didn’t even know at the time. I had to clean around the filth and the ceiling high pile of boxes and crap.

During 18 years, he was fired from more than 30 jobs. I was made to scour newspapers to find jobs so I could send his resumes out for him, while he sat home, never even getting out of bed. Anything creative I did was first met with compliments, but minutes later he’d complain that I should drop my creative pursuits and work on the relationship.I had no idea what he meant by that, because I was already doing everything I could think of to make him happy. He was jealous of any progress I made in any avenue of my life.

Sometimes he’d have a fit and I had to have a plan written out to ‘move the relationship forward.’ He would critique this plan the next evening. If it did not meet with his approval, I was in for a week-long shit storm. I recall once apologizing to the point I was crying and he would look at me with disgust and tell me that my apology sucked and please try again or else. I don’t think I ever felt lower in my life.

He told me my opinion and my memories were wrong and his were right. Over time he would alienate all our friends. He hated to be the one who was left behind, so he purposely sabotaged all relationships, each lasting about 18 months. He’d make me feel either totally wrong or totally invisible. Couldn’t he see how hard I was working to repair things? Couldn’t he see I loved him and I cared deeply for him? Yet he would tell me our relationship was like being on a bicycle built for two, and he was at the front peddling like mad and I was behind, not doing a thing. When I came out of this relationship I realized it was actually the reverse. But I could not see it then. I felt like I had been on this karmic treadmill for years and it was feeling very surreal, with crushing exhaustion in this never ending cycle. I wanted out so badly but I had no concept of how to do that, so I stayed as long as I could to make things work, while almost killing myself in the process.

Why didn’t I see that this was not a good relationship for me? Well I did see it, but I kept thinking it was fixable and I was in denial. I was in love with this guy, loyal, and not wanting a huge painful thing like a divorce to happen to us. Fear stopped me from divorcing many times. Those lessons repeated over and over to the point where the same exact thing would happen, the same fear would come up in me that I was not doing things right. Continue reading →

So you’ve had a blowout with someone in your life. This someone is very important to you, they may be your spouse, your live-in mate, a really good friend, or someone at work. You have been dealt a blow, and you feel very strongly about it. Perhaps trust has been violated. This is a basic foundation for any relationship. Maybe someone does not believe what you did or did not do. I’ve seen these two things happen to people close to me. They both handled it very differently, in their own way.

Some handle it with great emotions and a lot of drama because they feel slighted. Then they moved on feeling differently toward the person that slighted them. Some handle it by sweeping it under the rug, waiting for just the right moment to say something. “Oh, can’t do it today we are having dinner with friends. I can’t do it tomorrow, my spouse has a job interview and they have to be on their best behavior. Best to not rock the boat. The day after that is Saturday and I have worked hard this week, another argument is not what I want. Better put it off till next week. That feels better.”

Putting it off over and over and over. Not good. Those are just excuses to not get into the fray again. Kinda can’t blame anyone for wanting to avoid high drama. But avoidance is not good for really important things like a violation of trust. Those should be handled at some point, sooner rather than later. Sweeping anything under the rug means sooner or later the rug will be so full of crap that it will lift off the floor. All these little things add up. Sooner or later you have to deal with all that crap. Better to deal with it as soon as it seems prudent, with calmer emotions.

One thing I learned from a long-term relationship is what I call the three day rule. Any time we had a blowout, a disagreement, or not seeing eye-to-eye, letting it sit for three days seems to work wonders. It’s really hard to be angry at anyone or anything for three straight days. Anger takes a shitload of energy and no one on the planet has that much energy in their reserves. What helps is getting back to a normal routine. Routine puts humans in their comfort zone. Three days is also not enough time to have forgotten what was so important that pissed everyone off. Take three days off with the agreementto discuss it on the third day. That puts the responsibility back into the picture. Yes we pissed each other off, and yes we have agreed to discuss it when tempers are dormant and we feel more centered. Great! So far so good.

Finding the right time on the day you revisit this is easy. Pick the time you are both up, freshly awake. If at all possible do it first thing in the morning. Get up earlier than normal if you have to both be at work. If a relationship is at stake, it’s worth the extra effort. Have a cup of coffee so your brain starts percolating and turn off your phones and put them down for the entire meeting.

Discuss timing briefly the day before. “Hey let’s revisit that thing tomorrow morning over coffee. Does that sound like a good time? Let’s set aside an hour where nothing is going to interrupt us and where we are devoted to solving this, because I really want to resolve this thing that’s between us.” Even practicing your speech to ask your mate/friend when a good time to talk is important so it comes out right. Practice makes perfect and helps your confidence. If it’s a co-worker or other situation, do lunch.

You are sitting over coffee waking up. You both have decided to be here, uninterrupted to patch up this relationship before it gets worse. I would urge you to keep these guidelines in mind any time you have a discussion:

Turn off your cell phone, the radio, the tv. All of it. For the entire time you are talking. This should be non-negotiable and doable.

Do not bring up the past unless it is the thing that upset you. As in, don’t bring up something from last month, last year, and how you hate how they put a new roll of toilet paper on the thingy the wrong way and how they hate your mother’s hairdo. Yeah, that’s a no no. Keep the discussion moving along and focused.

If the other person keeps avoiding the important stuff and can’t stay on target, bring them back, gently, as often as necessary. If they say, “Hey did you see that red bike the other day I pointed out? That’s the cool new Red Racer model and I really want to save money for it and…blah blah blah.” There goes the focus and the discussion out the window. Help the other person gently back to the discussion. You might say, “Hey yeah, that bike is great, but I would rather talk about this issue we have. It’s much more important than a bike. We can talk about the bike or even go see it, once we are done. Now back to the issue at hand.” Do this as often as you have to.

Listen when the other person is talking, and ask them for the same courtesy. This can be hard, but good communication has three points: your mouth and your two ears. Your ears and listening are as important as talking and telling your story. If your friend/spouse/mate is not listening to you and just rambling on, let them know you’d like them to listen to you. It’s important for closure.

If that doesn’t work, look up the idea of a talking stick. He who holds the stick speaks, the rest listen. When one person finishes speaking, pass the stick to the next person. It goes round the table till all the talking is done and everyone is satisfied. Let’s hope you don’t have to get to that point.

Be open minded, and ready to compromise if you feel it’s right for the situation. But also stand your ground if something very basic and necessary like trust or fidelity is at stake. You know in your heart those very basic tenants that make up any relationship. And you know you should never accept less than is necessary to have a balanced, honest relationship.

Expect what you need as a bottom line for your relationship. If you don’t get it, maybe it’s time to move on. (Fidelity, trust, etc. We’re talking the big stuff here.)

Choose your battles wisely. Don’t go on and on about something small. Compromise and it’s okay to give in a little for lesser items. But….

You should never end a discussion feeling that you have given in too much, just to make peace. It is not worth it. Make sure the compromises are real and attainable.

Going forward, make sure all the rugs in your home have nothing swept under them (figuratively). Shake them out regularly and ‘clean house’ and be confident that later on you won’t trip over an old issue hiding under that rug! Believe me, nothing is better than clearing the air and forging ahead with the confidence that nothing is going unsaid, or lurking in the shadows. Be confident you are on solid ground. Live in the light and shake out those rugs!

Like this:

For a long time, I have had problems during or shortly after eating. This is definitely in the too much information category so I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say there was a lot of intestinal upset and extreme discomfort to deal with. I spent years trying to figure it out. First with my doctor, then on my own.

No, I am not allergic to anything, it was not any particular restaurant, food item, cooking oil, it was not dairy, nothing like that. I relentlessly checked and researched everything it could be. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I knew there was something worth discovering besides the obvious physical relief.

My research involved tracking when I ate, where I ate, how I ate, what was going on in my life that day. The whole shebang. My research showed that meal time was often the only time in my busy day I could relax. So I sat there in a daze, eating my food way too quickly and unconsciously, solving any problems on my plate. Going from being married to divorced and on your own means you are the only landlord, plumber, doctor, electrician, carpenter, bookkeeper, veterinarian, and fixer of problems at your household. There was much to think on. I came to call this unconscious and hurried consumption eating my problems. This was not a good way to take in nourishment! But there is more to it than that. This was the beginning of the solution to a long-term problem.

The realization that my GI tract was super sensitive and had a purpose beyond its normal function unlocked a lot of mysteries from my life. As a child I was swallowing those pink Pepto Bismol pills like candy. Children shouldn’t need to do this! I would run to the medicine cabinet downstairs to get them just in time to avoid an upset. This was usually while my parents were having a blowout. A typical week brought many of these upsetting verbally abusive, violent events. Looking back I must have been in great distress. And since my mother had her hands full dealing with the violence and atmosphere on her own, I could not always run to her for comfort.

If you have read my blog, you know by now my credo of Everything is Energy. A book I read that reinforces this in terms of your body being a large antenna for energy and vibes is The Tao of Equus:One woman’s journey of healing and transformation by way of the Horse, by Linda Kohanov. I highly suggest it as a great metaphysical, spiritual, horse, history and mythology lovers read. One of her main observations about the horse is, their largest, most accurate physical sensing tool is their gut. Their miles of intestines are super sensitive to energetic vibes all around them. Horses are, after all, prey animals and are always looking for danger in their natural environment. This concept can be easily understood and applied to the human as well. I too relied on this large sensing organ. My gut always told me if things were good or bad, safe or unsafe. It was my litmus test for life. It was my most reliable tool.

As a newly awakened, highly sensitive empath and intuitive, I now realize how easily I can be upset by, or in tune with the vibes, the atmosphere in a room, being in close proximity to anger, an argument, or fear. This really affects me greatly, and much more so than I realized. I knew our bodies are great antennas for picking up on all energies because I had my own personal proof. Almost all intuitive communications, for me, are sensed this way first—unless I’m asleep and dreaming. It is a good thing really. I can fine tune where I spend my time, how long I stay in a place of anger or bad vibes. I can sense if I am in good company or really good juju. So, for my new life, this gut sensing thing was working for me. But what was happening to this wonderful sensing tool of mine that I was in such distress? Was I misusing it, misunderstanding it, or on overload?

I knew the energy angle would tell me what I needed to know. As my research progressed, I felt like I was taking in bad energy, or too much disjointed, wiggling, frenetic vibes when I ate. I also discovered that in cases of high, happyenergy, eating made me even more sick. I realized part of the problem was beyond being able to sense things energetically. I had to be more mindful what I do with this energy. NOW we are getting somewhere! Almost there! Continue reading →

Over the years I learned to handle drama and chaos as best I can. I teach classes on handling it, because I lived through so much of it and found a way to deal with it. In the years during The Big Change, I was able to piece together a road map for my survival. So far, so good. Life is as good as it can be and I’m a happy camper. But, I didn’t get this way overnight. It took work. It was fun at times, but still took some shifting and tweaking each time I encountered a bit of drama or chaos here and there.

When you are dealing with chaos or drama, think of surfing. Learning to surf the waves, the ups and downs of life, can be hard at first. If you wipe out a lot, it sucks. Then with experience you don’t wipe out so often, you become stronger. Your muscles acclimate to this activity, and you actually have fun even if you are paddling out to sea to catch waves, or coming in after a good afternoon out. Your life will be better learning to handle drama and chaos—the ups and downs. The reality is, no one can totally get rid of drama and chaos from their lives. It will try and seek you out, no matter where you go. Be prepared. Know you can handle it and not get hooked. Be the space for anything playing out before you. Calm your inner vibe, go with the flow, etc. The more you practice, the less hooked you will get. You get the picture.

What I advise people is, if you try and totally avoid drama, it will find you. Let’s say you are sick and tired of all the drama and you want to opt out of it. Yes, you can learn how to deal with it, but if you want to not be bothered by anyone and never have any more drama, I’m telling you, the Universe will send stuff your way. You can’t run and hide from it. You may need to learn more about how the inner you handles life, so lessons come your way compliments of The Universe. Life in general can be chaotic and dramatic, because, well, human beings are involved.

Just for fun, let’s say you are on a deserted island all by yourself, happy as can be and you don’t want to be bothered. You are determined to be left alone, not wanting any more drama or chaos. There is a coconut tree on the island. Just you and that tree. For sure the coconut tree will start giving you shit, just to keep you in the game. It will start dropping coconuts on your head. It will move if you want to be in the shade. It will somehow end up being a source of grief for you. That’s how life is. Expect it. And I don’t mean in any sort of fatalistic way at all. I mean in a way that has you happily prepared to deal with whatever life throws you. Because there are ups and downs to all things in life. It’s a rhythm. Yin Yang, good bad, off on, light dark, happy sad. This advice is for people that believe if they live alone, don’t go out much, and don’t bother anyone, they will have this get out of jail free card for drama and chaos. Not so. Things happen. Learn to deal with it in a better way. Learn to surf. You will be better for it. You will have less stress, less angst, and feel freer and happier as you ride out life’s low spots.

When ‘shit happens’ I vow to get better at not getting hooked, at standing aside, at being the space for, and letting the drama play out without me involved as much as possible. It’s an art form. But since I’m human, I don’t always behave the way I’d like to. I never plan on doing badly, but sometimes I get caught up in things despite my best efforts. So when I get hooked, it’s humbling, but I remind myself I have to get better at handling that damned coconut tree. Piña colada anyone?

A good playground for being totally present and going with the flowin a chaotic situation is in heavy traffic. This was one of my biggest ah-ha moments ever. I had gotten off work early one day. It’s a rare treat to get off work early, so I ran a few errands downtown. I rarely go south of where I work, so a trip to downtown usually is a headache. This was the perfect day for it! After my errands were all run, I wanted to get home quickly. That should be easy at 3pm, right? Wrong! For some reason it was a very early rush hour and this really soured my mood. It takes an hour to get home as it is. How could I be stuck in traffic? It’s a lovely day and I want to be home quickly, enjoying the sunshine and my animals!

During this rush home, I was listening to a favorite guru, Eckhart Tolle on my iPod. He was talking about presence in the moment from his book The Power of Now. One of my favorite passages is where he talks about not resisting what the present moment brings. I was wholeheartedly agreeing with him about being in the present moment one minute, and complaining loudly to myself about the non-moving traffic the next. [Angrily] “How unfair life is that I’m stuck in traffic on such a gorgeous day!” [Happily] “Yeah, live in the moment as if you accepted it yourself!” [Angrily] “What is with this traffic?”

I did this mental and emotional badminton a few times until…Shazam…I realized what Eckhart Tolle meant about not resisting what the current moment brought, and laughed at how silly I was being. All this time I was agreeing with the author about living in the moment, and the next thing out of my mouth was a complaint about what was happening. I knew it was time for me to stop complaining about anything. Complainingis non-acceptance of What is. This goes against all my new found philosophies of going with the flow, avoiding chaos, etc.

That was a defining moment, and a really big insight into my mind chatter. I found I could make that change inside and live a happier life on the outside. I immediately switched to a relaxed mood, turned up some good music, and enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful skies. I sent a good feeling to other cars around me and relaxed. I realized I had been making myself miserable for no good reason. Now it didn’t matter if I was ‘stuck’ in traffic or zooming along the road. You get to choose the mood of the current moment, regardless of the outer circumstances. This makes everything in your life much smoother, happier, easier to experience. Fun even!

Through the Law of Attraction, we attract what we are signaling. Our inner vibes and energysignals what we want more of. Now I get it. Now it makes sense to me. I was complaining, frustrated and angry. If I continued down that road, I’d only be experiencing more of the same. This was like finding a key that fit every door!

Try using slow traffic as a way to practice mindfulness and patience. Another way I practice patience is to think of the worst scenario of being late. For me, that’s being late for or missing a flight. Even in that instance, you can catch another flight. Maybe you might miss an event. When I feel panic about missing, let’s say, an important event like a wedding, I remind myself that everything happens for a reason. Everything has what I call, divine right timing. Relax and enjoy the moment. Since you are not curing cancer, don’t sweat it! You could be delayed by Spirit because there may be an accident ahead. There are many reasons to just go with the flow and trust in divine right timing of all that is unfolding around you.

For many years now I have been keeping track of my dreams. A private online blog is the best way for me to have a journal I won’t lose, and it’s easy to search. Spirit communicates to me mostly through visuals, although I have had experiences of taste, smell, hearing, feeling and knowing. Mostly I am a highly visual person with super detailed dreams.

After you track your dreams for a while, it will become obvious what to pay attention to, and what to dismiss. The disjointed, out of focus, blurry and gray dreams are what I call garbage can dreams. They are an amalgamation of recent events, worries and other flotsam and jetsam floating around in my psyche. The other type of dream for me to not pay much attention to are what I call spaghetti dreams. When I eat pasta, I eat a load of it. Then I have the same type of dream only going warp 10 and a bit more crazy activity. Those are a bit more fun, but just as disjointed.

There are other dreams that are as detailed, deep, and visual as high definition 3-D movies. The dreams that go quickly, almost like a two or three second snapshot, are the ones I have learned to pay attention to. I find in those two second dreams, time slows way down, and sometimes the detail is turned up. My dreams are mostly visual, with hardly any sound. Spirit tries to get my attention by slowing down time, turning up volume, boosting color on an object, or taking color away.

The other night I had a dream that was only a few seconds long. In the dream I was listening to music and there was this really odd sound of crackling like either a burning fire, or electrical wiring gone haywire from my speakers. I hardly ever experience sound in dreams, so I was paying attention. My ear was close to these speakers and I wondered, what am I hearing? What do I need to know? It was as if the part where I was listening was slowed way down. Upon waking, I noted my dream in my journal and wondered if it was a message from Spirit to fix that one last bedroom of mine with old wiring. Okay, that’s already on the to-do list and electricians out in the sticks/in the mountains are rare as hen’s teeth. Duly noted. I’m on it. Let’s get on with the day.

That evening when I was watching TV my electricity went out. Dang, it was the first time during the weekend I had slowed down to have some time to myself. Okay, I checked the breaker box which I am intimately familiar with. Nothing wrong there. I texted the neighbors, and sure enough, electricity was out in my small town. We all have this system, I call it the coconut telegraph. We get on our phones texting or calling to urge each other to report the outage. This was the 4th of July, totally major holiday, and we needed to let the electric company know there was a problem. The more people that call means the electric company know it’s a wider area experiencing problems and they fix it sooner.

In the mean time, I was happy to sit and read, with actual peace and quiet! There was enough light coming through my window at 6pm. Yay, reading time! I had four books I was exploring at the time. Thank goodness my a/c, ceiling fans and swamp cooler had done their job earlier, keeping my home relatively cool. With power outages you realize how much you have to be thankful for. A ceiling fan swirling overhead. Ice cubes! A fridge full of unspoiled food. Cool air. Light at night. TV, internet and so on. I was fine, but my neighbor needs to keep the oxygen going, it’s a dangerously hot heat wave, etc and so on. The power company did call a few hours later and say that there was a part of a carport (or some other object) that was broken loose by the wind, and crashed into a power line on the pueblo, putting out electricity for over 2000 people in three areas. Yikes!

As I was settling back in to watching TV after the power outage, my thoughts turned back to the dream I had from that morning. Holy crap Batman, my dream foretold of this outage! It was not a dream about me necessarily, but about the area. That’s never happened before, where the message was for something greater than myself. When you start getting messages like these, it’s not necessarily so you can go out and save the world, prevent bad things from happening. This is Spirit very clearly communicating with you. A premonition like this is one way for Spirit to say, your antenna is up, intact and working just fine. Stay tuned for more messages. It’s very affirming to have communication like this.

The interpretation part is up to you. When I was first getting signs from Spirit years ago, it was almost like they were doing ‘testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.” It was more about the process than the message at that time. Be patient and observant.

For me, communication, premonitions, affirmations, visions, and synchronicities go in cycles. The best come between 4 and 6am. I let the dogs out at 4am, go back to sleep, have great dreams. I will have a great number of them for weeks or months, and then nothing. I hate the nothing part! But that’s how it goes. It gives you a sort of down time where you can process things and get back to your waking-world life.

Your personal experience may be totally different from mine. Maybe you don’t remember your dreams, don’t have many, or any. I used to keep a pen and paper by the bed. Sometimes I keep a dry-erase marker in the bathroom by the large mirror in there. I quickly scribble a note about the general contents of the dream when I’m up for a bathroom break. You may get messages some other way from Spirit. You might hear things, know or feel things. Keep a pen and paper in your car, you may remember things if you spend a lot of time in your car like I do. Information may pop into your head that you should pay attention to. We are all different. Everyone has the ability to receive communication from Spirit, if it is nurtured and worked on. That’s my opinion anyway.

Whatever way that Spirit might contact you, keep track of it over time. Note what the process is, not just the contents. Work with it. Be curious and ask for more clarity. Explore. Have fun with it! Be a good investigator and totally feel free to talk to and communicate with Spirit. Believe me, we are not alone, and Spirit is always there, listening, hoping to be of assistance, waiting for your communication. This is one of my favorite topics and I will share more in the future.

Feel free to share your own stories, I’d love to hear them! Click on the headline for this entry and you will find a reply section at the bottom.

Being compassionate and being ‘the wounded healer’ and wanting to help others is a good thing to do. But be careful you don’t overdo it in terms of being a doormat. You should never come away from an experience in compassion feeling used, spent, foolish, tired, or drained. And certainly you should never feel you have been taken advantage of.

Several years back, a local I knew and liked came knocking on my door in a rainstorm. Let’s call him The Farrier. I knew, as did everyone in town, he was recently on the outs with his boss/landlord. He had been kicked out of the place he had been staying, and lost his job. He was at rock bottom. I could not turn him away in the rain. Looking back, he had it timed just right, how could a person turn someone away in a downpour? Once I realized he needed more than shelter from this storm, I made it clear, this was to be temporary. I offered him three months stay, as long as he helped himself to get ahead in the world, not just lay around sleeping. He needed to earn his keep in working toward his future. I stressed it was more important that he work toward his future, than do chores around my home.

At first things went well. He started gathering firewood in the mountains to sell, and he was a farrier, so he had employable skills. He kept his part of the house clean. His needs were few. But I let things go too far too fast. He wanted to constantly borrow my car—a total no no in my book. He needed money all the time, and ate me out of house and home. After only a week his teenaged son and him were reunited. This really complicated things to say the least. His son did not live at my home, but he visited often and of course I had to drive him back and forth, usually a 60 mile round trip. I already drove 84 miles a day round trip Monday through Friday for work. On weekends I strive to never get in my car at all because I am burnt out from driving to work and back.

A few weeks later, on my birthday (just after Christmas) the Farrier’s son called me. He wanted to come live with us. Us? Us who? There is no us. I said no, flat out. I think that was the first time in my life the word no came out of my mouth so quickly and so definitively. I patted myself on the back for that one small victory. A few weeks earlier I had been diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, an extremely painful, nerve condition. I spent most of my time in bed, in the fetal position trying to figure out how I would have the energy, mental or emotional capacity to carry on with my job and my life. My family was far way, and I needed them. I could hardly manage my own life, much less take on another person in need. Instead of feeling cared for and nurtured, I was the caregiver to two very needy users.

They were nice to me to my face, but together they made my house look like a tornado hit it. They listened to music that was extremely rude toward women, and never helped with a thing. I fed their unending hunger, allowed them to do laundry, shower, and socialize at my place as if it were a flop house. Things were totally out of control within one week of these two reuniting. The son didn’t live with me but it sure felt like it! He was out of school and had no plans of returning—a high school dropout.

The factor that really kept me from kicking both of them out was this 15 year-old kid’s mother had kicked him out and given up on parenting him. All he had was his dad, who didn’t have the financial or mental capacity to deal with him. Emotionally speaking his dad was at the level of a 12 year old. He treated his son like a buddy, not offering any discipline. What would happen to him if I kicked his dad out? Where would they stay? What would they live on? His dad had given up on any sort of employment. He was flat broke. He’d be on drugs so fast and I didn’t want that to happen. Yet I hated myself and them for making me feel like the world’s biggest doormat. When I did suggest they clean up, etc. the change was short lived and things reverted back to chaos and drama. How to resolve this?

Before I gave them both the heave-ho, my compassionate side agonized with my rational side. I kept rolling this problem over and over in my head. How could I deal with this successfully, give this guy and his son the platform and foundation they needed for a better Continue reading →

The other day I was out to lunch with friends at a small French café. The food was great, but service was slow. No biggie, my friends and I had much to talk about. However trying to pay with my debit card was frustrating. That new chip technology was the culprit. I didn’t want to put a $12 lunch on a major credit card that I had paid off an hour before. There was plenty of money in my checking account, so I insisted they try running the card one more time, please. I checked the card just before going to lunch so it was not a problem of not enough money.

The wait staff (a man and a woman) were both short with me and quite rude about it. I later noted this same reaction from other diners on Yelp reviews. I did not appreciate the attitude of two of the waitstaff, and their denial that the chip was the problem. It was obvious that many other customers that morning had problems with the chip, and the staff blamed it on ‘…everyone else having money problems on the same day. They put money in and suddenly it was gone.’ Huh? None of that made any sense. It was obviously the machine they had not figured out how to use it. The receipt even said “transaction not completed” on it both times they ran the card. Almost every store with the new chip reader has had problems. We’ve all encountered it.

Mind you, this incident on trying to pay my bill did not include loud words, or any sort of a scene at all. It was in fact very subdued and quiet. But I could tell by the reaction of my friends when I returned to the table, that my pickiness in wanting things to go my way was less than ideal. I also don’t like it much when people are so picky they make themselves miserable or unhappy, so why was I doing it? I was being as inflexible as the wait staff, minus the rudeness. So much for my being open and spiritually aligned with All That Is! It went out the window so quickly. (Sad face)

What I should have done differently was to be more flexible about payment and just let it go. Sometimes those small things set me off, or tip over my applecart. Every day life sends me opportunities for growth, and situations where I could have done better. This was minor, but it was one of those times I could have done better by being more open and flexible. More in tune with what was going on. I could have made the smallest adjustment and all would have been better. Sometimes I laugh at myself for the things that upset me, or that get me off the path of the love vibe. More practice is needed! Well that’s what day to day life is for! Continued practice in the waking world, here on Earth. Ready, set, GO! (happy face)

No matter how small a thing is, you know when you can improve. Even if someone else is being rude to you, and you know you are ‘in the right’, you can let go and go with the flow. That makes the energy of the room, the vicinity, much better. Next time vow to do better.

Feel free to leave a comment in the reply section which can be seen by clicking on the headline for this blog entry. I would love to hear your stories!